The present invention generally relates to an optical character reader (hereafter simply referred to as OCR), and in particular to a dictionary creating method adapted to the OCR, for creating a dictionary which is used for recognizing an inputted unknown character.
Currently, various OCRs have been developed. In general, the OCR optically scans a document by use of an image scanner, and reads an image information from the document as image data. The image data may include printed or handwritten characters. Then, the OCR recognizes the unknown characters from the image data. Finally, the image data corresponding to the recognized characters are converted into character code data.
The OCR makes it possible to considerably improve efficiency in entering character information in the systems, as compared with a keyboard. Therefore, the OCR is suitable for input means for entering character information in character processing systems. For example, the OCR may be suitably applied to word processing systems, automatic translating systems, data sheet totalling systems and systems for producing data files. Also, the OCR may be suitably applied to communication systems such as data communication systems which transmit character data.
The OCR has a dictionary used for recognizing the inputted unknown character. In the dictionary, image data of each of known (reference) characters are pre-registered as reference image information. Image data of the unknown character is compared with image data of the reference characters registered in the dictionary. One reference character having the image data which matches with the image data of the unknown character is found. Then, the unknown character is identified as that reference character. Finally, the image data corresponding to the recognized or identified character is converted into character code data.
In general, many kinds of designs of type characters, or many kinds of character fonts are used. For this reason, the dictionary must be provided for each of the character fonts.
However, to create the dictionary or carry out maintenance of the created dictionary such as modifications or variations, it is necessary to use a tool specifically designed for creating and modifying or varying the dictionary. In other words, the OCR itself does not have such functions. For this reason, the creation and maintenance of the dictionary is very cumbersome.
In addition, the creation and maintenance of the dictionary for recognizing the handwritten characters is more cumbersome and complex due to many limitations regarding the dictionary creation.